How to Prevent Blood Clots After Surgery – 5 Steps

Blood clots are usual after effect of a performed surgery. However, this condition can be serious given that it can cause swelling and pain most especially when it happens in large veins of the legs. This occurrence is commonly known to us as DVT or deep vein thrombosis. To make matters worse, it the clot can be brought to the lungs and develop a condition called, pulmonary embolism, which can cause difficulty in breathing, leading to death.

How to Prevent Blood Clots After Surgery

We can prevent this condition through several measures, thus, follow these simple preventative steps:

Avoid or quit smoking as this does not only affect the clotting of blood but also your overall health.

You might tend to argue, but the best preventive measure is to move around. But if you can’t get out of the bed, you can do some knee bends and foot pumps to get your blood circulations flowing.

Wear compression stockings for your legs in order to avoid venous stasis, a condition when blood brings together in the veins of the patient’s legs. Compression stockings are uncomfortable to wear but this is only for a short time.

You can also wear mechanical or compression pumps which are wrapped around your foot or legs. Patients who had undergone major joint surgeries usually wear these to squeeze the blood in veins and cause the body to discharge natural anti-clotting molecules into the blood stream.

Talk to your doctor about blood-thinning medication. Some of these meds are injectable drugs like the lovenox and heparin. Some are taken orally like the aspirin, Coumadin and xarelto. Take in mind though, that Coumadin and heparin must be strictly monitored.